"Hope"

With 108 bpm rhythms flexing out reggaeton's skittery beats, moombahton mostly feels like music to get wild to-- as evidenced by the dripping wet t-shirt scene that adorns genre-creator Dave Nada's recent compilation Blow Your Head Vol. 2. Munchi's "Hope", taken from the record, sounds more like music for the morning after. A simple extended intro hangs on a two-chord synth exchange and a sparse drumbeat, and the vulnerability of this combination creates a strangely affecting emptiness as each chord lingers for an almost uncomfortably long time. Munchi ramps up the emotions further when he ushers in a piercing cut-up vocal. Despite the intensity of the sample, it never feels manipulative or corny, partly thanks to the inherent loneliness in the structure of the track. Munchi elevates elements to the foreground for just a few bars before allowing them to fall away again. Instead of layers piling up to create a sticky climax, as in so many emotional dance tracks, each part rubs slightly differently adding a new perspective each time. The result is a pretty beautiful sounding vignette whose subtext is curiously ambiguous but strikes a powerful emotional punch nonetheless.